


The Calm Before the Storm

by BritaniaVance



Series: Atonement [3]
Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Snippet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 06:51:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4867238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BritaniaVance/pseuds/BritaniaVance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite his tendency to desert his post, Atton is the only one who remains when the Exile emerges from the heart of darkness that is the shyrack cave on Korriban.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Calm Before the Storm

The mouth of the cave opened up to the dank darkness of its outer halls, scattered with shafts of light. They blinded her, each one piercing, stinging her eyes. Eden felt her right hand reach out to the rock wall beside her, barely keeping her steady. The rough surface carved minuscule valleys into the dry skin of her palms, but her limbs still felt so far away, the pain too distant to heed. Eden’s throat was as dry as the desert outside, and her body just as warm, if not more unpleasantly so. She stumbled forward. Despite the lapse, she excused her poor escape for a moment to breathe, to rest, _yes_ , just for a while…

“Hey, _hey_! Ede-" a familiar voice spoke to her through the murk of her mind, clouded with half-thoughts, non-memories and very possible visions of a Revan supposedly long-missing but now made manifest in the depths of Korriban.  
  
“Come on, I’ve got you.” Eden felt her weight shift, almost as if she were about to drift off into space before her rescuer took on the burden of her body, carrying her into the light. She blinked, hard, attempting to cleanse her mind, but her head wasn’t ready for it. Before she could make sense of her body’s own uncontrollable convulsions, she felt herself being set down, a pair of firm but gentle hands squaring her shoulders. Eden stopped shaking her head, her hair falling past her eyes as she finally began registering images outside of herself, outside of whatever the energies in that cave wanted her to see – what they _forced_ her to see.  
  
Her skin prickled with the sensation of suddenly growing cold. A hand moved stray hairs out of her face and placed them gently behind her ears, haphazardly, but still. And there was Atton, falling into focus, slow and steady. One of his hands remained at her shoulder, keeping her balanced, while his other hand coaxed her into the present. Warm knuckles grazed her temple with a gentle, comforting sensibility that the Atton back in the cave was not capable of. _This_ was Atton. This Atton had chosen to remain here, to shed his old self and occupy his time with something other than drinking or ruining someone’s plans. The Atton she had seen back in the cave, what felt both like ages ago and only moments before, was an Atton that _could_ have been, but had not come to pass.  
  
His eyes were wide, almost pleading with her to remain conscious. He must have set her down on a patch of rock beneath one of the columns of light for a streak of his face was bright, one eye almost pale and grey behind the dancing dust motes fluttering in the sun shaft.  
  
She came to herself slowly, now realizing that her hands were vice-tight at her sides. Breathing slower now, she looked down to glance at her fingers as they unfurled, revealing pinpricked palms pierced by the imprints of her nails.  
  
“You feeling okay?” Atton spoke again, only this time his voice sounded clear. He no longer felt so far away. Before it felt as if she were observing the world from underwater, looking up through the rippling glass-like surface, trying to make sense of the muted voices on the other side. Now she felt as if she were hovering just beneath the surface, still swimming, but slowly coming back to herself. She looked up at him again, her hands unsure of where to place themselves, but before she allowed herself to dwell on the thought Eden’s arms wrapped around Atton’s torso as the rest of her fell into him. She needed to know if this was real. She needed to remind herself of what was solid, what was _sure_.  
  
There was a moment of hesitation before Atton embraced her in kind. A breath of relief escaped his lips, teasing her hair as one of his hands cradled the back of her head, his other arm supporting her weight by hooking around the small of her back.

Feeling crept back into her. Eden’s skin grew warm at Atton’s touch, and as clarity settled over her mind she realized that she and Atton had never once been this close – or had not dared, at least. Instead of coiling away, she sunk further into his embrace, letting her face fall into the crook of his neck where it met his shoulder. Her hands tested the solidity of him, pressing him even closer, taking in the scent of him. Part of it was the relief, she knew, that the nightmare was over. The other part, well…  
  
As her mind took hold of itself and the Force settled into a more malleable form her breathing became even. Her hands eased on Atton’s shoulders, not holding him as tightly but keeping him close, finding comfort in the warmth of him. The thought settled in amongst everything else, seeping between ordinary bodily function and cognitive thinking, and it felt… _right_.  
  
There was no need to probe what forces controlled the universe to ask what this might mean, if this feeling was worth heeding. It was here, it was solid, and there was nothing left to ask.  
  
And despite what surety possessed her, there was a lingering uncertainty hovering at the back of her mind. Eden felt Atton kiss her hair as the Force prickled beneath her skin. Whatever this meant, perhaps the Force failed to respond because it had other matters to attend to, matters that dealt with the false betrayal she experienced in the cave, with the message Revan’s ghost relayed. Maybe it was Atton who would ground her through all of this, through the storm that was to come.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short snippet for now ;) Still planning on posting that full fic rewrite soon so stay tuned!


End file.
